


Fleeing the Force

by TrueRogue



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Evil Snoke, Exile, Gen, Islands, Isolation, Jedi, Jedi Master Anakin Skywalker, Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi Temple, Jedi Training, Kylo Ren Has Issues, Lightsabers, Meditation, Ocean, Old Republic Era, Rebellion, Resistance, Silence, The Force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-28
Updated: 2017-09-28
Packaged: 2019-01-06 12:28:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12211293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrueRogue/pseuds/TrueRogue
Summary: Rey has survived the journey from Jakku to Starkiller Base and the first discovery of her ability to use the Force.  Now, she journeys to the ocean planet of Ahch-To, the rumored location of the first Jedi Temple and the whereabouts of reclusive Jedi knight Luke Skywalker.





	Fleeing the Force

It felt like a moment which had no end, in the morning light at the top of the island peak. The human female known only by the name of Rey stood resolutely, the hand holding the lightsaber stretched to its full length in front of her, her eyes fixed straight ahead to the other human touching the saber, the man of legend, the reclusive Jedi master known across the galaxy as Luke Skywalker. The wind blew around them, tossing their hair and the hem of Luke's cloak back and forth.  
"May the force be with you, Master Luke," said Rey.

=========================

It had not been an easy journey for Rey. Less than a day before, the defecting storm trooper given the new name of Finn had been to rescue her at the First Order's Starkiller Base, Han Solo had been slaughtered by his own son and that son, Kylo Ren, had dualed Finn and Rey for custody of the saber she was now presenting to Luke. Her grief at having watched Han fall to his death from that catwalk was tempered by the revelation that she could use the Force and how it had assisted her in escaping the First Order. Maz Kanata had told Rey where the saber had come from and encouraged her to keep it. She had resisted, but it was the will of the Force that she should take it and use it.  
Now, here she stood, at the top of an island mountain on an ocean world, re-presenting the Jedi weapon to its last owner. She hoped Luke Skywalker would help her find direction in her young life and to understand her misconception that she should remain on Jakku where she had been deposited, blindly assuming that those who'd abandoned her would come back for her.

=========================

Rey didn't know how long she and Luke stood transfixed on each other., both their hands touching the lightsaber. Finally, Rey closed her eyes and lowered her head. Finally, Luke spoke.  
"What is your name?" he asked hoarsely, "And, how did you get this lightsaber?" Rey could tell that he hadn't used his voice for a long time. Perhaps, he had taken a vow of silence.  
Rey took a step away from Luke, letting him hold the lightsaber. "I'm Rey," she said, "I don't know where I come from or who my family is." She drew breath, wondering if her next statement would cause trouble. "But, I have just learned that I can use the Force. That lightsaber was given to me by Maz Kanata. I never learned how it came into her possession."  
"Maz," whispered Luke in apparent amazement., "Han introduced me to her after I joined the Rebel Alliance. She was unique. And, she somehow came into possession of my father's lightsaber?"  
"I suspect that you and I have a lot to share with each other, Master," said Rey, "but I wonder if this is the right place to talk. The Millennium Falcon is docked at the bottom of the mountain. Would you come back down with me?"  
Luke seemed momentarily reluctant. "I would like to see the Falcon again, Rey. But without Han - "  
"You know about Han?" Rey asked in amazement.  
"Yes," said Luke, and Rey was amazed to hear both grief and sobriety in response to the news that his old friend was gone. "I felt a disturbance in the Force as it happened. I know that he died and how."  
"I'm very sorry, Master Luke," said Rey, "I don't know what a Jedi is capable of in terms of controlling emotions, but I can imagine how you feel because of this."  
"It would be less than true if I said otherwise," said Luke.  
"Please come down with me," Rey implored of Luke, "Chewbacca and R2D2 are aboard the Falcon."  
Luke quickly turned away, looking back in the same direction he was facing when Rey ascended the mountaintop. There was silence for many seconds, during which he looked down at the saber in his hand. Finally, he looked up at her. "I will go down with you."  
Rey smiled her appreciation.

=========================

Partway down the mountain, Luke asked of the girl in front of him, "How come you refer to me as 'Master', Rey?"  
"I'm not sure," she replied, "That's what I was compelled to call you."  
She considered suggesting that he could train her, but it seemed too soon to voice such a notion. She recalled how he had blamed himself for Han Solo and General Organa's son turning to the Dark Side of the Force. Would he refuse to ever take on another student without exception?

=========================

At the bottom of the mountain, Luke gazed fixedly at the outer hull of the Millennium Falcon. He remembered clear as day being nineteen and chartering the ship with Obi-Wan to travel to Alderan - "What a piece of junk!" - before getting properly affiliated with its capabilities.  
"She's like another old friend.," he uttered to Rey, "most of the time, I could hardly tell where she stopped and Han or Chewy began."  
"If you come aboard, I'm sure Chewy would like to hear that," said Rey fondly, "as would R2."  
They ascended the plank and entered the cabin, in which Obiwan had given Luke his first ever lesson in the ways of the Force during the trip to Alderan. Chewbacca and R2D2 were playing the same holographic game as during that trip, and Luke was momentarily stopped in his tracks, thinking the previous 33 years had not taken place. Then, he remembered that they were the only two on board. He shook himself back to the present just as Chewbacca jumped up, exclaiming loudly at Luke's arrival and R2 went ballistic, beeping and wriggling in place. Chewy practically vaulted over the table with the gameboard to reach Luke and throw his arms around him.  
Luke embraced the 200-year-old wookie happily but with much more restraint. He said very softly, "It's good to see you again, Chewy."  
They looked at each other fondly for a few seconds. As Rey observed, a moment was shared between the two old friends in which she could tell the knowledge of Han's death and the mutual grief was communicated in its entirety. Did this exchange take place by itself, or was it assisted by the Force?  
After everybody had calmed down and adjusted to Luke's presence in the cabin, Rey took a seat next to where Chewbacca had been sitting, and Luke sat down across the table from her. She broke the discomforted silence and said, "Somebody has to talk. May I begin?"  
"Feel free, " Luke responded, " I would like to hear your story, and I am curious as to how you found me here. I assumed that my location was well concealed." He looked sternly at R2 who moaned worriedly.  
Rey began to talk, choosing her words very carefully. She told Luke about her earliest memory of being left behind at Nima Outpost on Jakku, how she became a scavenger who earned her keep from parts salvaged from a downed Star Destroyer and how she had convinced herself that she couldn't leave the planet because she thought her family would come back for her right where they left her. She admitted to having been stubborn and inflexible that whole time, all the while training as a pilot and imagining a life out in the galaxy. Then, she conveyed the timeline of events which brought her there to Ahch-To, Lor San Tekka on Jakku presenting Poe Dameron and his droid BB-8 with the navigational chart, FN-2187 (Finn) rescuing Poe and crashlanding on the planet's surface, BB-8 and Finn catching up to Rey, escaping aboard the Falcon, encountering Han Solo and Chewbacca, meeting Maz Kenata on Takodena, being lured to Maz' dungeon where she kept the lightsaber, being shown a plethora of realistic, frightening scenarios upon touching the saber, getting captured and escorted to Starkiller Base by Kylo Ren, discovering he's a human being approximately her age, discovering that she had an ability to manipulate people's thoughts, escaping captivity, rejoining Finn, Han and Chewy in time to watch Han be slaughtered by his own son, battling Ren with Finn, discovering that her newfound abilities came from the Force, escaping just before Starkiller Base exploded, meeting Luke's twin sister, General Leia Organa for the first time at the resistance base on D'Quar and watching the dormant R2D2 exiting low-power mode to share the fragment of navigational chart missing from the chart received by Poe.

Luke commented from personal experience with Darth Vader how courageous Finn was to attempt a dual with Ren without the skills of a Jedi or command of the Force.  
"When I saw Finn go down, I knew the only way to win was to take his place," said Rey, "otherwise we couldn't have overpowered Ren. Chewy had injured him, but he hadn't been stopped yet. I'm sure he survived. Such dogged tenacity."  
"I know," said Luke sombrely, "I was his Jedi Master. I know that boy better than he knows himself."  
"I heard," replied Rey, "Han told us Ren was your protege, but he didn't identify him as his son until Starkiller Base."  
The uncomfortable silence descended the cabin again. When Rey spoke again, it was to ask Luke why he exiled himself on this planet, the location of the first Jedi temple. The atmosphere grew tense. The whole time, R2 and Chewy had remained uncharacteristically still and silent. Now, Chewy fidgeted.  
Luke looked at him briefly before speaking again. "When Han and Leia were married, nobody was happier for them than I was. I knew they were meant to be together. And when they had a son named Ben after my old friend Obi-Wan, we all had nothing but positive hopes for the newborn. We could tell immediately that the Force was strong with him and that he could become a powerful Jedi. As he grew older, all three of us could tell that my nephew carried in him more than a trace of his grandfather - Darth Vader."  
Rey did a double-take. When she calmed down, she said, " I never heard that Darth Vader was yours and the general's father."  
"I didn't know either at first. Everyone told me Anakin Skywalker was dead. Nobody mentioned that he transformed into Vader. Not until I faced him at Vespin."  
He carried on. "Han and Leia had always intended for me to be Ben's Jedi Master. To her, it became more imperative as the boy became increasingly tempted by the Dark Side. I had accumulated many Padawan students, and all of them learned very well how to use the force and control their emotions, but none so well as Ben. He was the most accomplished among all the students. Everybody believed that he had conquered the temptation to join the Dark Side."  
"But, somebody else had other plans?" asked Rey.  
Now, Chewbacca and R2D2 moaned sadly. They had been privy to what Luke told her next.  
"His name was Snoke. He emerged from out of nowhere, having never made his presence known in the galaxy up until several years ago. When I first encountered him, I knew perfectly well that's he bore all the characteristics of Sheev Palpatine, the galactic Emperor who seduced my father to the Dark Side. I attempted to warn Ben that Snoke was not to be trusted. It was already too late. Everything I attempted to convey to the boy for 15 years was overturned in 15 weeks. Ben Solo was no more. He had been styled as Kylo Ren by the self-styled Supreme Leader Snoke and placed at the head of a unit called the Knights of Ren. In the blink of an eye, all my other students had been murdered. It is a mystery as to why he didn't try to come for me too."  
"I can imagine part of you must have felt dead inside anyway," said Rey, "those students must have felt as much like family as he did."  
"That's true," he responded, "when a Jedi Padawan is in training, they rarely communicate with their own family. They only think about the training."  
"So, you felt a measure of responsibility for your nephew becoming Kylo Ren?" she asked.  
"For a reason I cannot explain, I did," said Luke, "he was my responsibility, and it felt as if I had failed not only him but his parents."  
Luke had maintained his sober, somber tone, but the words themselves got Chewbacca angry. He suddenly howled very loudly, telling Luke that he was out of line.  
Rey held up a hand to quiet the wookie down. "Thank you Chewbacca. We all know how you feel." She turned back to Luke. "Please go on, Master, if you want to."  
"Even if I don't wish to go on, I understand I must," he said, "it is necessary." He paused briefly, then said, "After Ben turned to the Dark Side, I began to feel a well of emotion rising inside of me the sort of emotion which I knew had led my father to be seduced before. Witnessing the interactions between Han and Leia did nothing to help. They were arguing constantly. She had other issues to contend with at the same time, trying to cope with the responsibility of helping to build a new Republic and living with the public dishonor of being Darth Vader's daughter. It felt as if I might drown in the overwhelming emotions. I knew there were other people in the Galaxy who could become Jedi and needed someone to train them, but I was no longer in a fit state for the responsibility. I had to escape and face the onslaught of emotion as I saw fit. I had figured out this was the location of the original Jedi Temple from 20,000 years ago. It was isolated and uninhabited. I knew it couldn't be traced on any published navigational charts. I created one subchart and entrusted it to Lor. Then, I made my way here, and for the last 5 years, I have been silent. An the top of the mountain, meditating, attempting to come to terms with what happened and in the meantime - "  
He stopped suddenly. Rey looked at the others momentarily before asking, "In the meantime?"  
"I have attempted to remove myself from the Force," he said.

=========================

Then followed the longest silence thus far.  
"Remove yourself from the Force?" Rey finally asked, "Nobody ever said anything about fleeing the Force."  
"It's never happened before, " said Luke, " but I thought I might be able to. I thought that in the interest of keeping people safe, I could shield myself from being sensed in the Force, or from sensing others. That way, I could avoid being tempted by the Dark Side, and nobody would know where to find me. The less contact I had with the Galaxy at Large, the less potential damage I could do. At times, it seemed to have succeeded. However, there was no way I could have avoided sensing what happened yesterday to Han."  
"Han was merely the latest casualty," said Rey, "your nephew and his master have all but overrun the Galaxy. They devised a new dominion, the First Order, which bears multiple hallmarks of the Palpatine Empire. They destroyed the planetary system hosting the leaders of the Republic. Your sister is now at the helm of a resistance movement built in the likeness of the Rebellion. As of now, that's all that remains of the Republic."  
Luke's mouth fell open. "I was successful then in removing myself from the Force. I knew none of this before you mentioned it, Rey."  
"I apologize for burdening you with this news, Master Luke," Rey responded.  
"You need not apologize, Rey. It must have been the will of the force that somebody would catch up to me here. To tell me what has happened since I went away. And, that somebody was you."  
"As you now know," said Rey, "I have experience in attempting to avoid destiny. It is a difficult abject lesson, but one which I'm sure when we all must learn."  
Now, several minutes passed in which nobody moved or said a word. The breathing of two humans and the wookie was all one could hear, above the mechanical noises made by the ship's computer systems.  
"She wants me to come back, doesn't she?" Luke finally asked.  
"You mean your sister," said Rey calmly, "General Organa."  
"Yes," he said.  
"She would like you to come back, Master. And, that is all I have the authority to say. I would like you to train me in the ways of the Force. I suspect you would make a far better teacher than Kylo Ren. Weather you are able and willing to, that is your station."  
She stood up. "If you like, I will escort you back up the mountain. Then, the three of us will leave and return to D'Quar. It's my intention to join the resistance as a pilot. And please, keep the saber. I'll know that only if you do follow us back would you be willing to train me as a Jedi."  
Chewbacca spoke up again loudly. R2 bleeped in confusion.  
"Be calm you two," said Luke, "even if I do not come back with you today, that doesn't mean I have decided not to come back at all. I will need to continue meditating. You will know soon enough what my decision is."  
He and Rey left the cabin and descended the plank to the foot of the mountain.  
"There is no need for you to escort me back to the top," said Luke, "but thank you for offering. And thank you for being here today."  
"There is very little I have learned about the ways of the Force," said Rey, "but from what I have ascertained up to now, the force may have chosen this moment for me to meet you when you had overcome whatever it was that brought you here."  
"It could be," said Luke, "and my state of reluctance to come with you today has nothing to do with you."  
"You must do what you feel is right, of course."

=========================

As he stood and watched the Falcon lift off, Luke remembered Obi-Wan saying those last words to him when he was even younger than Rey. He examined the lightsaber still in his hand, then he activated it. The saber alone had been through a long journey but still functioned.

In the Falcon's cockpit, R2D2 asked Rey whether or not she thought it was a successful errand. Chewbacca nodded his head encouragingly, curious what she had to say.  
"Finding Master Luke was apparently the will of the Force," Rey told them as she input the D"Quar system's co-ordinates for the jump to hyperspace, "and now that we have found him, we have to wait and see what the Force wills next."  
And, they made the jump to lightspeed.

**Author's Note:**

> It is unknown how, if at all, Rey and Luke are connected, other than through the Force.  
> Disclaimer: this work is non-cannon, strictly for entertainment purposes.


End file.
